Crease Pattern

1085: Eric Joisel’s “Birth 3”

| wonko

Eric Joisel was rare in the Origami community – he was a sculptor first, paper folder second. To him, concept was king, technique secondary – saying that however, few breathed more life into paper than him. The “Birth” sculpture series is particularly interesting as the subject is META – arising from the flat sheet , a figure fights to be born – pure genius in his hands.

Joisel's "Birth 3"

“Birth 1” was an abstract humanoid scrambling from the middle of a rectangular sheet, “Birth 1” was a prototype Gnome, and “Birth 3” was one of his signature Dwarves emerging from the edge of a rectangle. I have found no clues as to how Birth 1 or 2 were achieved, but, with some assistance (and a possible CP shared by @fishfolder I was able to have a stab at “Birth 3”.

The journey for this particular fold started in 2019 – our last International travel prior to the pandemic. We travelled to Hanoi in Vietnam. One of the pilgrimages on that trip was to a small outlet store for a village collective who were revitalising the art or making traditional Dó paper by hand. I bought a sheaf of sheets, all natural dyes from Zó Project and carefully shepherded them home in a postal tube safely tucked into our suitcase. I now had a perfect sheet for this model: Natural Dó with leaf inclusions, an almost fabric-like sheet 60x40cm. I needed the shave the deckle edge off one long side to give me a “square” reference, as the sheet was deliciously wonky – this left me with a sheet close to 1.8×1 in proportions.

views

Next, the protracted and painful process of laying in the creases to allow the base collapse. The first cut and the first fold are the hardest, as there is no room for error. I was determined not to lay in any unnecessary folds, to allow the otherwise untampered paper to shine. I used the 28 grid version of Joisel’s Gnome, because I like the proportion of arm:body:legs you get at this grid, but accurately laying in 28th-based creases was an exercise in measured mister really.

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1084: Square Spaceness

| wonko

I have a huge pile of “must get around to folding this” models and “Square Spaceness” designed by Alessandra Lamio is one of this legion:

1084: Square Spaceness - plan view

Take a square, divide it into a 16×16 grid, lay in strategic mountain and valleys and you get this almost Escher-like tessellation molecule (meaning you _could_ put multiples of these if you had a more expansive grid with some tweaks and a bit of smush).

Charged with the confidence Advent of Tess gave me, I knew it was time to give this a whirl. There are many long slight diagonal valleys that make up the bulk of the geometry for the inward sloping spirals, and the corner widget is ingenious as a lock, and adjusting the outside pleats lets it sit flat – love it.

1084: Square Spaceness - diamond view
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1082: Advent of Tessellations

| wonko

It was late in the semester, I was looking for a folding project (to add to the other 4 already on my board – procrastigami strikes again) and noticed in my feeds a 25-day program by Madonna Yoder called “Advent of Tess”. I guess I am supposed to know about Advent, having worked in a Catholic boys school for 33 years, but… apparently it is the 25 days in December leading up to Xmas (learn something every day)

The idea was that Madonna released a CP and a video tutorial each day for 25 days, victims start with hexagons of paper pre-creased into 16-grid triangles, and collapse increasingly difficult combinations of tessellation techniques on the page.

1-5 (front/back/backlit): Cluster 6, cluster 4, cluster 6 alternating, cluster 4 alternating, HT6 closed alternating

The first few were easy, and collapsed simply, but then I decided I did not need the tutorials and proceeded to mark up the paper with the day’s CP and collapse from that. This approach came awry pretty quickly as the elements began to argue for the same real estate on the sheet and I learned that sequential development was way more sustainable.

The folds started with closed triangle twists (something I had done a lot of previously, so found accurate placement of these fairly easy. We later progressed to “open” triangle twists, which are much harder, and require a “setup” that uses paper tension to define the lines off-grid that were the sides of the triangle.

6-10 (front/back/backlit): Triangle double-bar wells, shrinking violet, studded wheels, radiant, dancing ribbons

We then progressed to closed hexagon twists (again, something I had done lots of beforehand) and refined them into “open” hexagon twists – a fascinating variation of a “star puff” of which I had passing familiarity.

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1080: Invention of the Crane

| wonko

This is a very personal fold, as well as a lovely meta design:

Boice Wong's "Invention of the Crane"

The first thing most people learn when they start out in Origami is the traditional crane. This fold speculates the genesis of this model as a happenstance some time back in the mists of time. Interestingly, the first model I was taught, as an 11 year old, by a Japanese exchange student, was the crane.

Designed by Boice Wong, released as a crease pattern, I was decided to give it a whirl. If I am honest, I am not really happy with my first fold, and will probably attempt it again (having learned heaps in the folding). The CP can be found here: https://www.obb.design/cp#iocrane

Using a single square, no cuts, we have a lady in a traditional kimono, kneeling in front of a low table on which there is a single crane. The genius of this design is the model is complete – it looks finished all the way around (indeed I fashioned a lovely “bow” Obe at her back. There is a colour change making the table/crane a different colour to the girl (I decided the focus of this fold was the crane, so it ended up white – next time I might just paint it, or perform an additional colour change which is possible with this design but results in a clumsier crane I think).

Boice Wong's "Invention of the Crane" Views

This has taken me an age. Initially, I attempted to collapse the base only to discover it was inside-out, then trying to sort out what flaps did what job (kinda aided by sorta advice from Boice himself), and decided on the current flap assignment when trying to ascertain how to compose the kimono and hide the internal layers, yet still give me the hair fringe. Quite a wrestle in the end.

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Solving CPs

| wonko

Crease patterns, photo sequences and diagrams are the primary way of communicating the complexities and details of an origami model. While I am fairly capable of faithfully following even the most complicated diagram sequence, but still consider myself a newbie at solving CPs:

Origami-kimiro's CP

Sometimes the job is easier – lines are indicated as mountain/valley (red/blue or dashed/dot-dashed lines), other times you only get the major creases of the “base”, from which you then shape and tease the details from.

Origami-Kimiro, a Discord user on OrigamiDan released a CP for a simple domino toppling, and I knew I needed to give it a try:

my fold of Origami_kimiro's CP

Using 12″ duo Indigo Tuttle paper, I laid in the creases, oriented them in mountain/valley and marvelled as the paper collapsed into a base that was pretty close to done. Finishing the hand, colour changing to get the coat sleeve, posing and done.

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